Tag: solidarity

The opening sequence in Get on the Bus was accompanied by a Michael Jackson song that I had never heard before. I consider myself to be one of Michael’s biggest fans so after listening for the first thirty seconds and realizing that I wasn’t familiar with the song I immediately Shazamed it. After leaving the screening I googled “On The Line,” and found out that it was written and co-produced by Babyface with Michael, and was made for the movie Get on the Bus. The song was released in 1996 but not on any of Michael’s own albums or greatest hits collections. This blew my mind because I fell in love with the song instantly and I didn’t know why such a good song, even if it was made for a movie soundtrack, wasn’t technically apart of his body of work. Especially because other movie soundtracks have produced major hits in the past. For example, Whitney’s Houston’s The Bodyguard gave us “I Have Nothing” and “Run to You.” While “On The Line” is tailored to fit the movie, its universal message of strength and perseverance far extends past its original movie purpose.

Something that is also noteworthy about this song is that Spike Lee had Babyface and Michael Jackson co-write it. I think there is something to be said that two of the greatest song writers, and arguably the greatest performer of all time, came together to write a song for a movie about Black men coming together to fight for civil rights and justice. There is an inherent beauty in the conception of this song. Babyface was in his songwriting prime in the ’90s, writing songs for Mariah Carey, Tevin Campbell, Boyz II Men and many other superstars. I believe for him to take the time to write this song for Lee is his own personal form of activism and homage to the struggle and legacy of the first Million Man march that happened in 1963. The song “On the Line” is layered with significance both in its conception and its delivery within the film. Beginning the movie with song produced and co-written by two superstar Black musicians for the purpose of said movie sets a precedent that the film is meant to make people stop and pay attention to its message.

Lyrics:

No sense pretending its over
Hard times just don’t go away
You gotta take that chip off your shoulder
It’s time you open up
Have some faith

Nothing good ever comes easy
All good things come in due time
Yes it does
You gotta have something to believe in
I’m telling you to open mind

Gotta put your heart on the line
If you wanna make it right
You’ve got to reach out and try
Gotta put your heart on the line
If you wanna make it right
Gotta put it all on the line

You see yourself in the mirror
And you don’t like what you see
And things aren’t getting much clearer
Don’t you think it’s time you go for a change

Don’t waste your time on the past, no, no
It’s time you look to the future
It’s all right there if you ask
This time if you try much harder
You’ll be the best that could can be

Gotta put your heart on the line
If you wanna make it right
You’ve got to reach out and try
Gotta put your heart on the line
If you wanna make it right

If you wanna do it now
You gotta learn to try
You can make it right somehow
Let love come free
And that’s just so easy now
You gotta go for what you want
You gotta do what you got to do

Gotta put your heart on the line
If you wanna make it right
You’ve got to reach out and try
Gotta put your heart on the line
If you wanna make it right

Have you ever made love to a drum? I have and it created the greatest sound in the world. This week I watched “Get On the Bus” alone, which offered a very intimate experience. The experience was so intimate that when I saw Jeremiah playing the drum, my heart skipped joyfully to his playing and heard the stories he was playing. Besides this moment, there were two scenes with the drum I enjoyed. Continue reading “Have You Ever Made Love to a Drum?”

Oscar Micheaux is credited as the first African American film director. He was part of a movement in film, which was called ‘race films’, a somewhat condescending and reducing title for an ambitious and formidable school of film. Micheaux’s films stand alone as race films that actually dealt with issues of race and in … Continue reading →

We’ve all heard this phrase used in earnest before. It’s supposed to downplay or excuse something racist said by a white person by demonstrating their personal affinity for black people. It is meaningless and an extension of the racism expressed in their previous statement that they are now trying to cover up with the excuse … Continue reading →

Spike Lee has a firm place in the debate of the obligation of the black artist. Lee sits as an unwavering force in this discussion because he is a black artist making art about black people for black people at an unprecedented scale with an unprecedented audience. Get on the Bus, for several reasons, … Continue reading →

In Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon addresses the appearance of blackness in black men and what it means to validate your black, male appearance. In lieu with that the idea that seeing black males, evoked memories of violence and following, feelings of fear in white people, I believe that there would have been an effort to […]

When I first watched Get on the Bus, I laughed out loud when I saw Isaiah Washington’s character. The laughter come from a place of being confused about his identity as a black gay republican and a vague memory of watching Grey’s Anatomy when I was in middle school. I found it interesting that in […]

This essay, by Bill Benzon, is one of the most sophisticated readings of Mo’Better Blues. I found it very resourceful for my final project. In this essay, he discusses; The Cultural Psychodynamics of Racism Discipline of Jazz: From Nature to Culture Destructiveness and Creativity: The Albatross of Romanticism The Blues in the Night Jazz as […]

TW: Sexual Assault The two aspects of School Daze that really rubbed me the wrong way were its handling of queer issues and its handling of sexual assault. In School Daze, Lee sought to portray HBCU life in all of its complexities. However, in doing so, I feel he used the issue of sexual violence and gay identity […]

As I mentioned in my last blog, I really wanted to do a film analysis of When the Levees Broke, but since I wasn’t sure how to go about it, I looked up some guidelines from a few websites. This film analysis website had the easiest step-by-step guideline, so I’ll be using it for my blog, but I’ll […]

I found Spike Lee’s 1996 film Get on the Bus to be an interesting, although not satisfying, look at Black American masculinity in its multitude of forms in the mid-1990s. One aspect of the movie that stuck out most for me was the depiction of queer (in this case, gay or MSM) identity. I was particularly […]